This
cartoon caricatures an angry incident between the Grand Army of the
Republic (GAR), an influential organization of Union veterans, and the
administration of President Grover Cleveland. Tensions between the
GAR and the president were already high when in 1887 Adjutant
General Richard C. Drum and Secretary of War William Endicott urged the
return of captured Confederate battle flags to their home states.
This cartoon appeared after President Cleveland initially approved the
order, and it shows the hostile reaction of the GAR. General Drum is presented as a chagrined bass drum pierced by
pointed flagpoles to which cling the tattered Stars and Bars of the
Confederacy. The cartoonist's sympathies are clear; the flags are
"trophies won by the GAR" in the Civil War and should not be
returned.

The official story of the founding of the Grand Army of the
Republic is that it was established in 1866 by Dr. Benjamin Franklin
Stephenson, a veteran Union army surgeon, in Decatur, Illinois, as a
brotherhood of Union veterans upholding the principles of fraternity,
charity, and loyalty. The actual origins are more complex.
While Dr. Stephenson was probably sincere in his articulated reasons, he
was further motivated to found the GAR to promote the political careers
of two Illinois Republicans who were Union veterans, former generals
Richard Oglesby (then governor) and John Logan (then a candidate for
Congress).

The organization quickly spread across the North, and located its
headquarters in Washington, D. C. In 1868, the GAR worked
diligently to get out the Union vote for their hero and former
commander, General Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican presidential
nominee. After Grant's reelection in 1872, however, the group
floundered for several years as membership dropped
dramatically. Three years later, the GAR reorganized under new
leadership and a platform emphasizing its founding principles of
fraternity, charity, and loyalty. By the late 1870s, it had
rebounded substantially.

The administration of President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889) provoked
a revival of the politicization of the GAR and its role as a lobby for
veterans' pensions. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected
president since before the Civil War, and the first commander in chief
since Andrew Johnson not to have served in the military during the war
(although Chester Arthur did not serve in battle). While
supporting the Union war effort, Cleveland had hired a substitute (as
was allowed by law) to fight in his place. In the eyes of the GAR, that made the president, at best, a
"slacker" who would be unsympathetic to the interests of Union
veterans.

President Cleveland confirmed their fears and earned their ire by his
policies on patronage and veterans' pensions. The president came
to office determined to facilitate sectional reconciliation, but he
grossly underestimated the lingering animosity in both the North and
South. Since the war, Union veterans had been given unofficial
preference in government employment, so Cleveland's removal of
Republicans who were Union veterans and his appointment of Democrats who
were Confederate veterans raised cries of disloyalty from the GAR.
To Cleveland, however, he was simply doing what all presidents did by putting his partisan supporters in office, as
well as trying to move beyond
the Civil War.

Cleveland was also committed to efficient and limited
government. He appointed John C. Black to head the Pension Bureau,
giving him the mandate to clean up and reorganize that federal
agency. In his first year, Black streamlined its administration so
effectively that more claims were investigated more fairly and quickly
than ever before. Cleveland hoped that the improved Pension Bureau
would deter Congress from passing private pension bills allocating money
to the veteran claimants rejected by the agency. When Congress
continued the practice, Cleveland investigated the claims himself and
vetoed those that he deemed illegitimate (such as the man who blamed his
poor eyesight on wartime diarrhea). Although he accepted the vast
majority of claims, he was the first president not to allow
them automatically, which prompted loud criticism from the GAR.

The bad relations between Cleveland and the GAR reached a new low in
January 1887 when the president vetoed the Dependent Pension Bill.
It would have granted a pension to every disabled veteran, even if his
disability was not traceable to military service in the Civil War, as
well as awarded pensions to dependent widows or parents of deceased Union
veterans. In his veto message, the president objected to
separating pension claims from wartime service, arguing that such a
change would greatly increase the likelihood of fraud and abuse of the
pension system. The GAR was furious.

The final straw was the subject addressed in the cartoon:
Cleveland's "infamous" flag order. On April 30, 1887,
Adjutant General Richard Drum sent a letter to Secretary of War William
Endicott informing him that several captured Confederate flags were
being stored in the basement of the War Department. The adjutant
general broached the possibility of returning the battle standards to
their home states in the South. On June 7, the secretary informed
Drum that the president had agreed and issued an executive order to that
effect.

The GAR's reaction was swift, forceful, and derogatory. General
Lucius Fairchild, the GAR commander, called the executive order
treasonous and beseeched God to "palsy the hand" of the
president who had signed it. Cleveland had earlier accepted an
invitation to review the troops at the GAR's annual Grand Encampment,
but was now warned that his presence would be subject to verbal abuse
and possibly physical assault. Cleveland withdrew his plan to
attend the GAR event, and chastised those who would insult the occupant
of "the people's highest office." However, on June 16,
1887 (two days after this postdated cartoon was published), Cleveland
rescinded his executive order, leaving the matter to Congress. The
flags remained at the War Department until the twentieth century.

The GAR continued to grow in membership--reaching its peak in 1890
with 490,000 members--and as a powerful veterans' lobby that politicians
would buck at their own risk. In the twentieth century, as members
died, it lost its former stature and finally ceased to exist in 1949.